Tonglushan — "Bronze Green Mountain" — is among the most important ancient mining sites in China and one of the most important anywhere in the world. The copper mines here have been worked intermittently since at least the Western Zhou period (roughly 1000 BCE), and the archaeological excavations that began in the 1970s revealed a sequence of smelting operations spanning more than two thousand years. The site museum displays in-situ mine shafts, timbered galleries, and the remains of smelting furnaces that give a visceral sense of what Bronze Age industrial production looked like.
The site is located in Daye county, about 10 kilometres south of Daye city centre. A well-organized exhibition hall covers the metallurgical techniques, the scale of production, and the geographical reach of the copper trade — connecting the mines here to bronze vessels found across central and northern China. This is not a polished international museum but a serious archaeological site, and the quality of the preservation and interpretation is high for a site that attracts relatively few foreign visitors.
A dedicated minibus runs from Daye to Tonglushan on weekends; otherwise, take a taxi from either Daye or central Huangshi.